FOX PRO PLAN?® Cc ron, PROPLAN | PROPLA GAME-CHANGING FORMULAS Cesena on os ee aa SRC eee Role oe Ma a Eno ere AC ee cole se LULU LSI Te BS PURINA| YourPet, Our Passion:‘TMB STUDIO/K. SYNOLD Features o4 COVER STORY SO THAT'S WHY WE SAY THAT!* Fun facts about the language that’s been confounding speakers for centuries: English. BY BRANDON SPECKTOR 66 ‘THE GENIUS ISSUE What I'm Currently Reading Classics? Self-help books? Not for this Reader's Digest editor. BY ANDY SIMMONS 70 ‘THE GENIUS ISSUE The Enduring Delight of the Dictionary Every unknown word is a solvable mystery. BY RACHEL DEL VALLE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES COVER ILLUSTRATION by Richard Borge Reader's Digest A Trusted Friend in a Complicated World 74 THE GENIUS ISSUE My Favorite Word We asked readers and they shared theirs, whether in the diction- ary or made up. BY READER’S DIGEST READERS 78 HEALTH The Placebo Cure Why doctors are prescribing sugar pills instead of the real thing. BY LIAGRAINGER 86 DRAMA IN REAL LIFE The Great 9/11 Maritime Rescue* We've read about so many heroes of that fateful day, yet some- how this mission— the largest of its kind in history—remains largely unknown. BY GARRETT M. GRAFF FROM NEW YORK MAGAZINE 94 INSPIRATION My Southern Accent, Lost and Found* I denied this part of myself, until I realized what I was missing. BY BECCA ANDREWS. FROM JEZEBEL.COM RD.COM | SEPTEMBER 2022READER’S DIGEST Contents Departments EVERYDAY MIRACLES THE RD LIST 22 AGem ofa 101 A League of Their 4 Dear Reader Proposal* Own, and More 6 Letters BY CATHY FREE FROM QUOTABLE QUOTES THE WASHINGTON POST | 194 Angela Bassett, WORLD OF GOOD Ree Drummond 9 The lowa Wave WE FOUND A FIX 24 Preserve Your TRUSTED FRIEND 10 ee aera Herbs, and More 112 Walking with ie Movie Gets Mozart a New Ending How Te oiaen Niemann BY ADRIENNE FARR 26 Learn a Language 13 Bear Trap as an Adult* The Healthy BY ANDY SIMMONS BY EMILY GOODMAN 41 Beyond Burnout* ee FOOD FOR THOUGHT a Not-So-Crazy 14 Life Advice from 32 Bubble Tea Skin-Care Trend, a Five-Year-Old BY SARAH JINEE PARK Apps for Insomnia BY TARA PARKER-POPE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES 413 THINGS 46 ea bi ae BEST PET PALS 34 A Celebration of ka ee 18 Oscar the Rooster 100th Birthdays | Brain Games BY EMILY GOODMAN 106 Happy Campers, WHERE, OH WHERE? Seesaw, and More 52 Mama Mimi 109 Word Power Humor Life in These United States . 20 Humor in Uniform 30 Allina Day's Work fee Laughter, the Best Medicine 50 Sendletters to letters @rd.comor Letters, Reader's Digest, PO Box 6100, Harlan, lowa 51593-1600. Include your full name, adress, e-mail, and daytime phonenumber. We may editlettersand use theminallprintand electronic media. Contribute your TrueStoriesat rd.com/stores.Ifwe publish one ina print edition of Readers Digest, we'll pay you $100. Tosubmit humor items, visit .com/submit, write tous at Jokes, 44 South Broadway, 7th Floor, White Plains, NY 10601. Welll pay you $25 for any joke or gag and $100 for any truefunny story publishedina printedition of Reader’ Digest unless we specify otherwise in writing. Please include your fullname and address in your entry. We regret that we cannot acknowledge or return unsolicited work. Requests for permission to reprint any ‘material from Readers Digest should be sent to permissions@tmbi.com. Get help with questions on subscriptions, renewals, gts, address changes, payments, account information, and other inquires at rd.com/help, or write to us at customercare@rd.com or Reader's Digest, PO Box 6095, Harlan, lowa 51593-1595, 2 SepTEMBER 2022 | RD.COM * Story referenced on cover TMB STUDIO/K. SYNOLDFALL BACK TO “Hae IN oe 777s MELATONIN ic BACK TO SLEEP on ULTRA LOW DOSE a MELATONIN NENT SRAPID DISSOLVE DIETARY SUPPLEMENT RAPID DISSOL een Le ee ZzzQuil. Back to Sleep to help you fall PU Pa 7775 back to sleep naturally in thé middle of the night.* No next day grogginess. No water needed. een ela an eee ee THIS PRODUCT IS NOT INTENDED TO DIAGNOSE, TREAT, CURE, OR PREVENT ANY DISEASEREADER'S DIGEST 4 [DEAR READER More than Words N A LIST of life goals that I have so far failed to com- plete, learning a foreign language is somewhere near the top. I always wanted to be fluent in a second lan- guage. But aside from memorizing a few useful phrases in high school Spanish and taking a Japanese course in college, I have yet to master a for- eign language. My wife, Melissa Gorski, has all the talent in this department. She can learn a language in a weekend—at least enough to get around a foreign city. She’s handy with Spanish and French. She once taught herself Japa- nese using an off-brand CD box set before a trip to Tokyo. Then she did it again with Italian. These days, we know our roles when traveling: She does all the talk- ing, and I nod and eat gelato. That hasn’t dampened my passion for languages and words. I love their history and meaning, the way they change and evolve over time, SEPTEMBER 2022 | RD.COM My wife, Melissa, guiding us in Italy. Not pictured: Me eating gelato. and the different sounds and rhythms of each language. So I was right at home here in our Word Power issue. I loved explor- ing weird word origins (page 54) and learning about your favorite words (page 74), such as cwm, which is now my secret Scrabble move. Maybe it’s not too late for me. As. our own Senior Editor Emily Good- man points out on page 26, new re- search shows it isn’t as tough to learn a foreign language when we get older as researchers previously thought. There’s hope for me yet. If this page is in French next month, you'll know I finally did it. Jason Buhrmester, CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER Write to meat letters@rd.com. FROM TOP: COURTESY JASON BUHRMESTER. TMB STUDIO/MARK DERSE$1999 valmted jitterbug smart3 Perens Our simplest smartphone ever. The Jitterbug’ Smart3 is our simplest smartphone with a simple menu, large screen and exclusive health and safety services. EASY Everything you want to do, from texting and taking pictures, to emailing and getting directions, is organized in a single list on one screen with large, legible letters. 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A data plan s required for the Jitterbug Smart3, Plans and services ‘may require purchase of a Lively device and a one-time setup fee of '35. Urgent Response or 9-1-1 calls can be made only when cellular services available, Urgent Response service tracks an approximate location ofthe device when the devices turned on and connected to thenetwork. Lively doesnot guarantee an exact location. Urgent Responses only available with the purchase of aHealth & Safety Package. Consistently rated the most reliable network and best overall network performance n the country by HS Markit RootScore Reports. LIVELY and JITTERBUG are trademarks of Best Buy and its affiliated companies. ©2022 Best Buy. Allrights served.6 LETTERS NOTES ON Past Issues Prd ue “I Never Thought of It That Way” My four siblings and I are a microcosm of the country, representing liberals, conservatives, atheists, and Christians—just like the family described as having a blowout on Thanksgiv- ing (June). Our mother’s solution to our argu- ing is that we're not allowed to talk about politics or religion or p! lay Trivial Pursuit. That rule has kept the peace for 25 years. —SUZANNE HUTCHINSON For Sale: My Catalog of Dad Jokes I both laughed and cried at Gary Rudoren’s story about having no use for his dad joke collection now that his son has outgrown them (une). I saved mine, too, when my kids got too old. It was a great decision because I now have three grandkids who are young enough to laugh hysterically at my now “Opa jokes.” —MARK KOHLBRENNER Ozawkie, Kansas Everyday Heroes It's so refreshing that dads in Shreveport, Louisiana, banded together to help curb fighting at the local high school just by showing up and being good influences (June). Students must feel safer and also as if they have adults to mentor and listen to them. I'd love to see something like this in every high school in my own state. —JUANITA LIVINGSTON Rome, New York SEPTEMBER 2022 | RD.COM Akron, Ohio 13 Things You did a good job explaining the many benefits of Airbnb and Vrbo (July/August), but there are some down- sides too. My daughter lives in a vacation town where every house is instantly snapped up by someone who turns it into a vacation rental, which causes a severe shortage of affordable long-term rentals. She sometimes has to block off half of her restau- rant—not because of a lack of customers but because of a lack of staff, since nobody can find affordable housing nearby. —TOM HOCKETT Colfax, Washington Flip the 'Script T enjoyed your story about home remedies Uune), and I have an- other cure for an ail- ment you described. A few years ago, my entire class was silent for a lesson—except me. I couldn't stop hiccuping! My teacher gave me a spoonful of peanut butter, and my ‘TMs STUDIOCHLOE ZOLA hiccups were gone. Now I understand why it worked (hard swal- lows activate the nerve that regulates your diaphragm). — KATE ULRICH Montgomery, Alabama Dear Reader I completely agree with your editor's letter about how much sup- port Ukraine deserves Uune). Palestine is experiencing a similar crisis but doesn’t get nearly the coverage. Being born an Ameri- can is a privilege, and we should use it to help others as much as possible. — SAFIYA BLEVINS Knowille, Tennessee Advice to the Young How I related to Marga- ret Atwood’s writing about her urge to dole out advice (June). I often feel compelled to offer helpful infor- mation, too, but have also felt the tug on my sleeve to stop. The most likely recipients of such sagacity are my very patient grandkids. They know I do it out of love! —CAROL BEALL Mount Airy, Maryland We Found a Fix Tlove that in your “Cool Off a Hot Car” fix you chose a Tesla Model 3 image to demonstrate that flapping the door READER'S DIGEST open and closed will get rid of hot air (June). That vehicle has a fea- ture that allows the driver to turn the air conditioning on re- motely via a smart- phone app. —PHIL STILLMAN Newcastle, California THE “ORBISCULATE” CHALLENGE We published “Warning: This Fruit May Orbisculate” (December/January) about a family's quest to register their dad’s made-up word in the dictionary. Later, we printed a letter from Sue Mollineaux of Torrington, Connecticut, who wrote that her senior community chose it for its word-in-a-word game. Within an hour, the residents found 223 words with four or more letters within “orbisculate.’ She challenged others to try their luck, and lots of you did. + laccepted Sue's challenge and found 278 words. Not bad for an old broad! —Sue Starn PATASKALA, OHIO + We took more than one hour, but we are only two people. We counted 306 words, and we keep finding more. —Ken and Hazel Kirschenmann HUNTINGTON, WEST VIRGINIA + Ilove word games and sat down for an hour to make my list. | stopped when | got to 400 but probably could've kept going! —D.B. PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA,You can help further the legacy: hrs of Danny Thomas=> CS DET MT Ee y \ Founder Scan the QR code with yoursmartphone camera to learn more. t Sixty years ago, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital® opened its doors, allowing entertainer Danny Thomas to bring people together in support of one lifesaving goal: Finding cures. Saving childret By embracing the legacy of Danny Thomas as your own, you can help ensure the pioneering research and unsurpassed patient care today and for future generations continues. In the last 60 years, treatments developed at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% when we first opened to more than 80% today. With your support, we won't stop until no child dies from cancer. Learn more about how your legacy can make an impact. stjude.org/legacygifts | (800) 395-4341 St.Jude Children's) Research Hospital ALSAC/St. Jude Childten's Research Hospital (RELM-2778)READER’S DIGEST. World of GOOD REASONS TO SMILE The Iowa Wave ‘UNE IN TO a University of Iowa football game at the end of the first T quarter and you'll see players, coaches, and fans (Hawkeyes and their opponents!) united in one goal: to cheer on the patients at the Stead Family Children’s Hospital. All 69,250 people in attendance turn and wave in the direction of the hospital, where kids, their families, and staffers gather at the big windows overlooking Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. “It’s one of the reasons I go to the game,” says junior Olivia Hasselmann. Her friend, senior Rubye Ney, agrees. “It kind of forces you to stop and think about things more important than football.” INREADER'S DIGEST EVERYDAY HEROES The Movie Gets a New Ending A producer discovers that the bad guy in his real-life crime drama is innocent By Adrienne Farr IMOTHY MUCCIANTE WAS an executive producer working on a film called Lucky when something in the script struck him as odd. The film was based on the 1999 mem- oir of the same title by Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones. It recounts her sexual assault in 1981 while a freshman at Syracuse University. It was late at night when Sebold was walking alone back to her dorm. As she entered a tunnel, a man brandish- ing a knife grabbed her, threw her to the ground, and raped her. The book's title came from a police officer who 10 septemser 2022 | RD.cCoM said a girl had once been murdered in that tunnel. By comparison, the officer told Sebold, she'd been “lucky.” In October of that year, Sebold said aman ona Syracuse street called out, “Hey girl, don’t I know you from some- where?” Sebold mistakenly assumed that the man, Anthony Broadwater, then 20 and a Marine, was speaking to her. She became alarmed. Broadwater looked vaguely like her attacker—both were Black, and around the same size and age. Sebold called the cops, and Broadwater was arrested. Although he steadfastly proclaimed his innocence, he was convicted of eight felony counts, including first-degree rape. PHOTOGRAPH BY Marvin Shaouni‘World of Good ll STC Mucciante was RUC Rute la) CUTE) cere C—ORE. 12 ADER’S DIGEST He would spend 16 years in prison. Released in 1998, he had to register as a sex offender. The crime was brutal. But was Broadwater guilty? After comparing the script to news accounts of the trial, Mucciante wasn’t sure. During a police lineup, Sebold initially picked out a different man before eventually changing her mind. Not only that, Se- bold later said she and the men stood only feet apart. “I knew that is not how lineups work,” says Mucciante, who was no stranger to them. He was “SOMETHING WAS VERY WRONG WITH THE VICTIM’S STORY.” in a lineup in the 1980s when he was arrested and ultimately served time for investment fraud. Victims and suspects are never that close. Was she lying? Confused? Who knows, but convinced “something was very wrong with this story,” Mucciante pulled the $5 million he put up to finance Lucky. It was not a decision he made lightly. Mucciante, who had been a lawyer and journalist, had just formed his own film company a year earlier. Lucky was to be his big break. Using his own money, Mucciante hired a private investigator and contacted two lawyers who found numerous discrepancies in the case: A partial SEPTEMBER 2022 fingerprint on the pocketknife used in the rape could not be linked to Broad- water; distinguishing features like a scar on Broadwater's face and his chipped tooth were never mentioned and did not appear in the police sketch; and Broadwater passed two polygraph tests. And then there was the police crime lab analyst who tes- tified that hair found at the scene had characteristics that were consistent with Broadwater’s—but the hair com- parison method he used was deemed unreliable in later cases, leading to several defendants being set free. Convinced they had enough to ac- quit Broadwater, the team brought their findings before a judge. On No- vember 22, 2021, Anthony Broadwater, then 61, sat in the courtroom, his salt- and-pepper hair in cornrows, awaiting the judge's ruling. When he heard it, he let out a gasp and wept. He’d been exonerated. His name would no longer be tainted by the words “sex offender.” Sebold regrets her mistake, saying she struggles with the role she played in sending “an innocent man to jail.” Mucciante was almost as happy as Broadwater. “Watching Anthony get his life back is the biggest benefit” he says. As for his film career, Mucciante is producing a documentary about the case, called Unlucky. In it, Broad- water, overcome by all that Mucciante and the others did for him, struggles to find the right words. “This is amaz- ing,” he says. “It’s just like, you can’t fathom it, man.”COURTESY KALEB BENHAM Bear Trap By Andy Simmons and Kaleb Benham was puttering around outside his home in North- ern California. His 90-pound pit bull, Buddy, was romping around nearby, doing what dogs do: getting into trou- ble. Only this time, Buddy was getting into a whole lot of trouble. The unmistakable sound that no one wants to hear alone in the woods caught Benham’s attention. It was the deep, guttural, otherworldly roar of a black bear. Benham wheeled around to see the beast, which Benham fig- ures weighed around 350 pounds, some 100 feet away. In an instant, the bear latched on to Buddy's head and started dragging him away. Benham, a lean, fit 24-year-old, took off after them. “Honestly,” he told CBS13 in Sacramento, “the only thing I could think of was ‘save my baby.” Sprinting, he lowered his shoulder and plowed into the bear. But it only tightened its grip on Buddy. Benham grabbed the bear by the throat. Noth- ing. He tried prying open its mouth, but the jaw was locked tight. Benham resorted to street fighting—pummeling the bear over and over around its snout and eye. It worked. The bear dropped the dog and ran off into the woods. Buddy was in bad shape. His face i T WAS THE day before Thanksgiving World of Good Kaleb Benham and a fully healed Buddy was bloodied and ripped up. His ears were dangling. He had a bite mark clear through his lip and one that barely missed an eye. “My first thought was that I was going to lose him,’ Benham said. He scooped up Buddy, put him into his car, and sped off to a nearby veterinarian. Buddy’s surgery took nearly four hours. Benham watched the proce- dure through a window. “I just stood there,” he said, watching as Buddy’s ears were stapled back on and skin flaps were stitched, and tubes were inserted into his head to drain fluid. This was the second time Benham. had rescued Buddy, says CBS13. The first was from a shelter a few years ago. “If it was your kid, what would you do?” he asked. Nodding toward Buddy, he added, “That's my kid” RD.COM 13\ \ Think ahoulWorld of Good READER’S DIGEST LIFE WELL LIVED i Life Advice from a Five-Year-Old Stressed? Overwhelmed? Maybe doughnuts, dinosaurs, and Dolly Parton can help. — By Tara Parker-Pope FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES HEN GWENYTH TODEBUSH \ X ] told her five-year-old son, Clark, that she was feeling anxious about a meeting, he knew he could help. “Mama, I am nervous all the time,” he said. “I know what to do.” What followed was a stream of up- lifting advice through a five-year-old’s filter. Gwenyth posted their exchange on Twitter, and it went viral. “Everybody is kind of coping with one kind of stress or another in a pandemic,” says Gwenyth, who lives in northern Michigan. “I think it rang true with people. I said on Twitter that he’s the only life coach I know that gets paid in goldfish crackers.” ILLUSTRATIONS BY Ruth Burrows Here is Clark’s advice, followed by brief explanations from his mother: “You gotta say your affirmations in your mouth and your heart.” “Another mom on Twitter talked about saying affirmations with their kid before school. We tried it. Some- times I tell him, ‘Say it like you mean it! I guess he translated that.’ “You say, ‘lam brave of this meeting! lam loved! I smell good!’” “He knows you can be ‘scared of’ something, so he talks about being ‘brave of’ things. I love the gram- matical construction. I’ve never corrected it because I like it better. RD.COM | SEPTEMBER 2022 15READER’S DIGEST World of Good I don’t know where the ‘I smell good’ came up, but I like it. I’m going to use ita lot” “You gotta walk big. You gotta mean it. Like Dolly on a dinosaur. Because you gotit.” “He really loves Dolly Parton’s ‘Coat of Many Colors’ When kids are making fun of her in school, she still went in and was brave and talks to those kids. I don’t know where the dinosaur thing came from.” “Never put a skunk ona bus.” “I don’t know whatit has to do with being nervous” “Think about the dough- nuts of your day!” “We used to go to this little record shop. There was a room in the back and a whole section of records for a dollar. I would take him down there with a dollar bill, and he came back with a Burl Ives record from the '50s. There's a song on there called ‘The Donut Song. It goes, ‘Watch the doughnut, ~ not the hole’ After we listened to that ~~ song a lot, that became our thing. Every night at bed he tells me about the doughnuts of his day.” “Even if you cry alittle, you can think about potato chips!” “When he’s upset, sometimes I tell him to think about things he’s look- ing forward to. Potato chips are high on his list.” “Even if it’s a yucky day, you can get ahug.” “There have been so many times when there's nothing I can do. I tell him, ‘Even if it's a bad day, when you get home, I'll hug you’ Clark didn’t have other kids around during the pandemic, Gwenyth says, so she’s been working with him to make the transition to school easier. Affirmations helped, though she didn’t realize how much until Clark offered his own versions of them. ‘THE NEW YORK TIMES (FEBRUARY 3, 2022), COPYRIGHT © 2022 THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY. Voy Kids Today Will Never Know... ... the annoyance of calling your friend and having to ask to speak to them. ‘W@ROBIN_991 ... the joy of being selected to go outside to dust the erasers. ‘W@DARLAINKY ... the rush of the Internet finally connecting on that third dialing attempt. WG@CROCKETTFORREAL 16 septemBer 2022 | RD.COMeRe ea rss jitterbug flip2 only *1999/mo.° Our easiest Jitterbug phone ever. The Jitterbug® Flip2, from the makers of the original easy-to-use cell phone, has big buttons and an exclusive Urgent Response button on the keypad. EASY TO USE Today, cell phones are hard to hear, difficult to dial and overloaded with features you may never use. That's not the case with the Jitterbug Flip2. 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By enabling Alexa on the Jitterbug Flip2, you acknowledge that Lively is not responsible for Amazon Alexa's functionality or services. Amazon, Alexa and all telated logos are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Screen images simulated. Appearance of device may vary. LIVELY and JITTERBUG are trademarks of Best Buy and its affiliated companies. ©2022 Best Buy. All rights reserved 100% US-basedlive | Nohidden | customerservice monthly fees ely.com/flipREADER’S DIGEST World of Good Oscar the Rooster NEPTUNE, NEW JERSEY E WERE ALL confused when a W rooster showed up in our sub- urban senior community, con- sidering there are no farms nearby. The colorful bird strutted from porch to porch for corn and other goodies from generous neighbors, and then roosted in trees at night. One neighbor, Richard, became es- pecially close with the rooster, named Oscar by the neighbors. Richard has lingering PTSD from military service, and spending time outside with Oscar noticeably improved his outlook. 18 septemser 2022 | RD.COM Submit your story ‘and see terms at e rd.com/petpals. Then disaster struck: Richard was hospitalized, and while he was away, the township took Oscar. When Rich- ard returned, he was crushed to find his friend gone. He went to the animal shelter to spring him, but there was a hefty fee for Oscar’s release. Two days later, I heard a familiar cock-a-doodle-doo. Oscar had re- appeared! We're not sure how our jailbird was sprung, but we suspect a neighbor bailed him out. Every time I hear Oscar crow, I'm. grateful that Richard’s life is a bit more livable thanks to Oscar's company. —Nominated by LOUISE GILHOME LOUISE GILHOMEPe PURINA oa ‘hae rat NA Your Pet, Our Passion:READER'S DIGEST ee LIFE IN THESE United States Whenever my three- year-old grandson comes to visit, we inev- itably play Army. I’m the lowly private and he's the general bark- ing out orders. “Sol- dier, do this! Soldier, do that!” One day, while we were playing, he needed to use the bathroom. A few min- utes later, the door opened and there he stood, his pants around his ankles, 20 SEPTEMBER 2022 ee ey aelenssm =< shouting, “Soldier! I can’t get my pants up!” —KATHY DEVER Park City, Illinois The guy in front of me in the grocery store checkout line was buying just three things: a case of beer, a carton of cigarettes, and a gallon of milk. The total came to $75. He stood there for a moment in disbelief before asking the cashier, “How much was that milk?” —BRYAN ISELT Lexington, Texas Forget about endless school concerts. The worst part of the school year is the morning drop-off: + Commute to school: 3 minutes Wait in the drop-off line: 3-4 business days. —@MOMSENSE_ENSUES + My husband is CARTOON BY Frank MelansonSHINGOPIX/GETTY IMAGES helping me relax by taking the kids to school this morning. ‘We went over the drop- off procedure 37 times and he just left without one of the kids. —y @MARYEAIRYBOBRRY + Me at school drop-off: Have a good day. Six-year-old: You can’t make me! —y@XxPLODINGUNICORN I've been running for more than half of my life, and I admit, it’s possible that I've slowed down a step World of Good I've never meditated. The closest I’ve come to thinking about nothing for 30 minutes is the time my husband talked about his fantasy football league. —W @MOMMAJESSIEC or two. Recently, I was grinding up a steep hill when I passed a 77-year-old neighbor in his driveway. “Nice day for a walk” he said. —BILL DEANE Cooperstown, New York I'm supposed to give my wife an injection today but she’s worried cuz she’s seen my many struggles with Capri Sun straws. —y@DADDYGOFISH —a YOUR FUNNY STORY about family and friends could be worth $$$. For details, go to page 2 or RD.COM/SUBMIT. AH, THE JOYS OF PARENTHOOD My six-year-old, to her crying brother: It’s OK to be sad. Sometimes we need to let our feelings out. Just let yourself be sad. Me: Oh darling, that’s so lovely. Well done. Why is he crying anyway? My six-year-old: | hit him. —y@ELSPELLS13 | walked in on my three- year-old pumping all 4 of our hand soap into the bathroom sink, all while chanting “wasting soap, wasting soap” to himself. —w@NULLSTATEOFMIND. Six: So, you'll never get taller? Me: Nope, I can’t grow taller. Six: Only fatter, right? —y@HOMEWITHPEANUT ‘+ Me: Yes, you were in my belly. My three-year-old, with tears in her eyes: Why ... why did you eat me? —w@GOINGBYRENEE You may be tough, but you’re not “just sat through a 4th grade re- corder concert” tough. —w@MCDADSTUFFE Ro.com 21READER'S DIGEST 22 EVERYDAY MIRACLES A Gem of a Proposal BY Cathy Free FROM THE WASHINGTON POST HRISTIAN LIDEN WAS in eighth C grade when he hatched a gran- diose plan to create a personal- ized engagement ring for his future fiancée. Never mind that he didn’t have a girlfriend. If a natural diamond could take billions of years to form, he figured he could be patient. Liden decided that he would not pick out a ring in a jeweler’s case like most other people. Instead, he would go into the wild to find his own mate- rials: the diamond, the gold, the ac- companying gemstones. Everything. SEPTEMBER 2022 “I've always been a rock hound, so, to me, this is the perfect way to get an engagement ring,” said Liden, who lives in Poulsbo, Washington, near Seattle. “Actually, it’s the only way. I couldn't imagine not making it myself.” Last year, Liden decided that it was finally time to put his plan into action. He and his girlfriend, Desirae Klok- kevold, had been together for more than five years. “I knew that I wanted to marry her, and L also wanted to surprise her,” says ILLUSTRATIONS By Ben KirchnerLiden, who works for his family's ex- cavating business. So, in May 2021, Liden told Klokkev- old that he and Josh Tucker, his best friend since sixth grade, were heading out on a camping trip to Yellowstone. He and Tucker made their way in- stead to Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas, which is set on an eroded volcanic crater. The park is one of the few places in the world where the public is welcome to search for real diamonds—and keep what they find. About 33,000 diamonds have been found at Crater of Diamonds since it opened in 1972. Most are fairly small. Only 1 in 10,000 park visitors is lucky enough to find a diamond that weighs a carat or more. Liden knew that the odds of finding anything spectacular were minuscule. Still, he was up for the challenge. He had started panning for gold around his home state years earlier and now had enough to make the ring band. On the way to Crater of Diamonds, Liden and Tucker had stopped in Helena, Montana, to mine for sapphires. There they found a couple of small beauties to add to the diamond they hoped to score. In Arkansas, the pair paid $10 each to get into the park and got to work. They spent almost three days sifting through the volcanic dirt. On the third morning, Liden sud- denly spotted something reflecting light in the gravel on his sifting screen: World of Gor a shiny pebble a bit larger than a pea. “IT was so excited that I started shak- ing, and I called Josh over to take a look,” he says. Tucker let out a whoop when he saw the stone. “It was oily and shiny, and we both just knew it was a diamond,” he says. “We freaked out a little bit— we couldn't believe it.” WHEN HE RETURNED, HE CONFESSED TO HIS GIRLFRIEND. -—> The two quickly took the find to the park office, where it was confirmed that Liden had found a 2.2-carat triangular yellow diamond. Similarly sized diamonds go for $2,500 to $20,000 per carat, depending on color, cut, and clarity. But the value wasn’t what was important to Liden. “To me, it was priceless,’ he says. “T'd found Desirae’s diamond.” When he returned to Poulsbo, Liden confessed to his girlfriend that he hadn’t been in Yellowstone. “Then I pulled out the diamond and got on my knee,” he says. “I told Desirae that I'd like to design a ring for her if she'd marry me.” She was stunned. “I knew that he was going to propose someday,” Klok- kevold says, “but I certainly didn’t ex- pect this.” She said yes. THE WASHINGTON POST (JUNE 22, 2021), COPYRIGHT © 2021 BY THE WASHINGTON POST. RD.COM od 23We Found a FIX HELP, HACKS, & HOW TO Preserve Your Herbs Once you have a nice dinner on the table, it’s difficult to predict when you'll be up to such gourmet cooking again. But don’t let those handfuls of chopped rosemary, oregano, thyme, and dill go to waste. Freeze leftover herbs in olive oil in an ice cube tray, then while warming a pan for your next piéce de résis- tance, toss in a cube or two to melt. The herb-olive oil mixture will leave the pan both lubricated and seasoned. SOURCE: RD.COM 24° SEPTEMBER 2022 | RD.COM‘TMB STUDIO READER’S DIGEST MONEY TRAVEL ) Turn Gift Cards 3 Plan “Green” Plane Trips into Savings Want to be kind to the earth while seeing every No matter how badly you | corner of it? Search on Google Flights and use the “Any want something, it'shard | emissions” filter to see how many kilograms of carbon not todipintothemoney dioxide are emitted by each available flight based on you keep setting aside. flight plan, aircraft, and number of seats in each class. Tomake sure those funds | You can even filter by “Low emissions only” to see the stay untouched, buyand | greenest flights available. save gift cards until you SOURCE: APNEWS.COM have the amount you need. Want a new laptop? Throw down on Apple gift cards. Need anew dish- HOME washer? Put your extra A Magnetize a Screwdriver cash into Home Depot gift The next time you go to war with an IKEA table, cards. This way, you can’t | place a small magnet on the metal part of your screw- dip into your shiny-new- | driver. Screws will automatically attach to the tip of object fund. Youmaybe | the screwdriver so you won't have to hold each screw motivated to save even in place with one hand while you twist the screwdriver faster if the cards have handle with the other. It'll make a complicated project expiration dates. much easier. SOURCE! LIFEHACKER.COM | SOURCE: FAMILYHANDYMAN.COM TECH 5 Scramble Your Passwords, Not Your Brain The best passwords are so good, so unguessable, that everyone (sometimes even you, apparently) gets locked out. Instead of using something obvious (no pet names!) or going through the hassle of password recovery, try this trick that cyber security experts recommend: Choose a short phrase, lyric, or quote that you'll remember. Then, swap in numbers and symbols that resemble the letters. For example, rewrite “No place like home” as “n0-PI@ce_ L1k3-ho*3.” It'll still be memorable but a lot more secure. For even further security, refrain from making that lyric or quote your Facebook status. SOURCE: RD.COM PHOTOGRAPHS BY K. SynoldREADER'S DIGEST ‘TMs STUDIO 26 sepremser 2022 PHOTOGRAPHS BY K. SynoldHOW TO Learn a Language as an Adult Contrary to conventional thinking, it isn’t too late BY Emily Goodman OR MORE THAN two years, F Dulcie Shoener of Milwau- kee, Wisconsin, has done daily German lessons on her smartphone. To some, that might sound like self- imposed homework, but Shoener, a language lover and the copy chief for Reader's Digest and other publica- tions, doesn’t see it that way. “I enjoy it so much,’ she says. “It’s a delight to be able to read a short story in German.” To be able to read, write, or carry on a conversation in another language is a feat few Americans attempt, let alone achieve. Just 7 percent of our university students study a language other than English, and less than 1 percent of American adults are proficient in a for- eign language they studied in school. Of her college German, Shoener says, “{ remembered very little” Yet the rewards for those who do learn a second (or third, or fourth...) language are profound: increased travel opportunities, of course, but also improved memory, focus, and ability to multitask. Bilingual brains are better shielded against cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. And, according to a poll conducted by the language app Babbel, know- ing multiple languages can make you seem more attractive. So, why aren’t more of us multi- lingual—or trying to be? There are dozens of decent answers to that question, but one common retort doesn’t have much merit at all: the idea that adults, especially older ones, RD.COM 27READER'S DIGEST just can’t learn languages as easily as children can. Linguists have long debated how old is too old to acquire a language, but newer research is refuting the idea wholesale. “There is no magical point at which it becomes impossible to learn a new language,” says Alison Gabriele, PhD, of the University of Kansas, who led a study published last year showing that adult learners—even as beginners—could process sentence structures in new languages much like native speakers. Separate research at Cambridge University recently found that language instruction affects adults and children the same way. While it's true that children tend to pick up new languages quickly and easily, this has more to do with how they learn than how old they are when they do. Kids absorb and infer lots of information about language simply by listening: to family, friends, teachers, and the media around them. It hap- pens without much thought or effort on their part and, when they do put in effort, it’s because they want to 28° sepTemBER 2022 understand the story, joke, or game that’s going on. By contrast, adults tend to learn in rigid academic set- tings where they have little say in what they study and where the stakes are also higher. What Shoener can recall from her German classes is the pressure to maintain her grade point average. “I was horrified of making mistakes,” she says. “Now I’m not afraid, and I know I’m doing better than I did in college” If you dream of being bilingual, your age does not disqualify you. Make the process more fun—and, by extension, more successful—with these tips: Find your motivation. Wish you had paid more attention in high school Spanish? Consider why you didn’t. Perhaps all you wanted out of the class was a good grade, or to. fulfill a graduation requirement. Lin- guists call these incentives “extrinsic motivators,” but the most successful language students are “intrinsically” motivated, sincerely invested in their own learning. So pick a language you are excited to use, whether on a grand vacation in Spain or on your couch watching Spanish soap operas. Pick your tools. It might take some trial and error, but you'll figure out which resources work best for you. Mobile apps such as Duolingo and Babbel gamify your learning, so if you could easily spendhours playing on your phone, you'll likely find these similarly addictive. Others such as Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur are less gimmicky but more rigorously researched. Consider a conversation-based class on Italki or Idlewild. And don’t neglect books. McGraw Hill and Barron’s offer excel- lent textbooks, grammar guides, and workbooks with answer keys to let you see how you're doing. But you may enjoy children’s stories more, with their simple vocabulary and easy-to- understand narratives. Dive in. Immerse yourself in your chosen language as much as you can. Watch movies or listen to songs, even if they are just on in the background. Peri- odically look around you and see how many things you can name in the lan- guage you're studying. Or, better yet, label items around your home with those words. You’ll have no choice but to see them and, in very little time, learn them. Get social. Practicing with other people helps solidify what you've already learned and makes you more aware of which ideas you're able to express. These need not be native speakers you chat with, though various websites and apps such as languageexchange.com, HelloTalk, and TalkAbroad can con- nect you with some, either free or for asmall fee. We Found a Fix Don’t sweat your mistakes. Kids get it wrong all the time. They'll say, for instance, that they “goed” to school and played with other “childs.” But inherent in these errors is an un- derstanding of the general rules: We e “-ed” as a suffix to put an action in the past, we add “-s” to make things plural, and so on. Although kids often misapply these rules, they pick up on the patterns and use them in novel situations. This is what successful lan- guage learners do. Sometimes you'll miss the mark as you unknowingly stumble on an irregular verb or an exception to the rule. But more often you'll be right. And even when you do falter, those who are fluent should still be able to understand what you mean. Try less. It seems counterintuitive, but you're more receptive to pick up on language patterns when you aren't hyper- focused on learning them. So rather than stare intently at a vocabulary list, glance over the words while you lis- ten to instrumental music. Or enjoy a glass of wine ahead of conversation practice. As research at the University of Liverpool has shown, our ability to speak a second language improves after a bit of alcohol. Or turn on sub- titles in the language you're learning even as you watch TV in English. But don’t devote your full attention to them—just enjoy the show and absorb what you can. The less you stress, the more you'll be able to learn. RD.COM 29READER'S DIGEST We Found a Fix HUMOR in UNIFORM lasked a new trainee when he needed to hand in his paperwork. Trainee: The training manager said any time after a thousand. Me: A thousand? A thousand what? A thousand clicks? A thousand minutes? Trainee: That's all her message said. See? (shows me the mes- “No, my memo isn’tencrypted. “Sure thing.” He sage, which does in- reached over with his deed say “After 1000.”) | spatula and cut my Me: OK, that’s potato in half. “There, ten-hundred, as in, now you have two.” 10 a.m. —KENNETH FRAGMIN —NOTALWAYSRIGHT.COM Mount Clare, West Virginia 1 was in the chow line staring at a measly, Military personnel lonely potato on my are an optimistic plate. “Is that all I bunch. During an get?” I asked the cook. | ROTC class on defen- Taking pity, he sive positioning, asked, “Would you someone asked like two?” our instructor, “Yes, please.” “What do we do 30 sepTemser 2022 | RD.COM The spell-check broke.” if we're surrounded?” “Son,” the instructor said, “never think of yourself as being ‘surrounded. Look at it as being in a target- tich environment.” —EDWARD ROUSE Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania — YOUR FUNNY MILITARY story could be worth $$$. For details, go to P.2or RD.COM/SUBMIT. CHRIS WILDT/CARTOONSTOCK.COM| FW Benctul Joyful. ie) ‘ora 5 ene =a Discover more joy at Beneful.com PURINAREADER'S DIGEST FOOD FoR Thought Bubble Tea Blows Up By Sarah Jinee Park HEN BUBBLE TEA was first introduced to the United States about 30 years ago, you could get it only in mom-and-pop shops in big-city Chinatown and Koreatown. Now it’s popping up in cafés around the coun- try; Baskin-Robbins even offered a version this spring and summer. Classic bubble tea is black tea brewed with milk and sugar, then poured over ice and tapioca pearls (also known as balls or boba; bubble tea is often called boba), and served with an oversized straw so you can slurp up a pearl or two with each sip. Made from tapioca starch extracted from cassava root, these marble-sized pearls traditionally are boiled and caramelized in brown sugar syrup, giving them their dark color and sweet flavor. (Just take care not to swallow the pearls whole; they’re meant to be chewed and savored.) 32 SEPTEMBER 2022 On most bubble tea menus, you'll find an array of options for the tea itself, including green, matcha, jas- mine, chai, and even fruity herbal varieties. Some favorites in Asia are lychee, white peach, and taro, which has a nutty vanilla flavor. You can then top your tea with flavored jellies, fruit, ice cream, custard, and mochi (a sweet Japanese rice cake) to make it even more indulgent. Several Taiwanese teahouses claim to be the birthplace of bubble tea, though Chun Shui Tang in Taichung has perhaps the most perpetuated origin story: Its owner started serving chilled tea in the early 1980s after see- ing coffee served cold in Japan. A few years later, a staffer poured tapioca balls straight into her cup, and the fantastic fusion was born. Whether or not this ( was truly the case, bubble teahas \ a relatively short history despite \\ the fact that drinking milky tea and eating starchy desserts are both long- standing Southeast Asian traditions. Some shops use a machine to seal the cup with cellophane so it’s easy to tote around without spilling. But the process doesn’t have to be so high- tech: You can even make bubble tea at home. In fact, you likely already have all of the ingredients—minus the tapi- oca pearls, which you can make your- self, though it’s far easier to buy them online or from an Asian grocery store. While you're there, also pick up some fat straws. Slurp and enjoy! 8 PHOTOGRAPH BY K, Synold ( ’ ) Co ) G t TMB sTuoIo ‘ “We Found a Fix HOWTO MAKEIT Startwith 1 cup tapioca pearls (enough for two to four servings of bubbletea). Boil 3 cups of water, cook pearls until they float, then keep themontheheat for about a minute more. Rinse pearls in cool water, drain, and put them ina jar with some simple syrup. Next, brew the tea, letting it steep alittle longer than ifyou planned to drink it plain. Sweeten to taste, and chill. Place pearlsina tall glass, fill two-thirds ofthe way with tea, then top with your favorite milk. Stir with astrawandsip. Ro.com 33READER'S DIGEST (stuns © A Celebration of 100th Birthdays oo BY Emily Goodman zine just celebrated a big birthday: Our February issue marked a century of circulation. We want to fete our fellow centenarians, such as the Newbery Medal, which honors outstanding children’s literature. The first winner: The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem Van Loon. IF you happen 2 to drive a Jaguar with Belle Tires and insure your car with State Farm, then your road trips are sponsored by 100-year- old companies. The United Services Auto- mobile Association, or USAA, which serves ] THIS LITTLE maga- 34 sepremser 2022 ILLUSTRATION By Serge Bloch RUTHBLACK/GETTY IMAGES (CAKE), ARTISS/GETTY IMAGES (CANDLES)those in the military community, was also founded in 1922. The original members were 25 Army officers who all insured one another's vehicles. A CENTURY ago, 3 the New York City radio station WEAF aired the first- ever radio commercial, a whopping 15-minute- long real estate ad for available properties in Queens. Later that year, the BBC was formed, and the popularity of this new medium of radio helped usher the word “broadcast” into the dictionary. OTHER WORDS A that got official entries in 1922 include “by-pass” (as in the road), “sidecar” (as in the cocktail), “tracksuit) and “poly- ester” “Eye shadow” was also added that year, even though it’s been worn since the time of ancient Egypt. (Egypt also formally gained its indepen- dence in 1922.) THE BLENDER was 5 born 100 years ago. Its inventor: Stephen Poplawski, a Polish immigrant to Racine, Wisconsin (also the home of Horlicks Malted Milk). Poplawski’s blender helped make the mod- ern milkshake possible. And, in fact, the first shake made with ice cream came together at a Chicago Walgreens in the summer of 1922. AMERICA’S FIRST 6 chocolate-covered ice cream bar, the Eskimo Pie (renamed Edy’s Pie in 2021), was patented in 1922. Creator Christian Kent Nelson partnered with chocolatier Russell Stover on the treat, then the pair sold the manufacturing rights to a few ice cream compa- nies in Iowa. They were an instant hit, as the first 250,000 bars sold out within 24 hours. GUMMY BEARS are 7 also a century-old sweet. They were invented in Germany We Found a Fix (where Gummibér translates to “rubber bear”) by Hans Riegel for his candy company, Haribo. To celebrate, the confectionery giant is offering special edi- tion bags all year with blue raspberry-flavored party hats as well as single-flavor bags—a longtime fan request. THE FIRST example 8 of skywriting in the United States happened in May 1922, when Royal Air Force Capt. Cyril Turner wrote “Hello USA” over New York City. The following day he took to the skies again to write “Call Vander- bilt 7200,” referencing the hotel where he was staying. Over the next few hours, the hotel received 47,000 calls. WATERSKIING WAS 9 invented 100 years ago by a daring Minnesota teenager named Ralph Samuel- son, who held on to a clothesline while his brother Ben towed him behind a boat in Lake Ro.com 35READER’S DIGEST We Found a Fix Pepin. Samuelson then spent years developing his own waterskiing equipment but never patented any of it, so he likely never saw any money for it. ROSE BOWL 10 Stadium in Pasadena, California, opened in late 1922 and has hosted the New Year's Day tradition every year since with only two exceptions: first in 1942, due to fears of another Japanese attack following Pearl Harbor, and again in 2021, due to COVID-19 restrictions. Centre Court at Wimbledon opened for matches in June 1922. PROFESSIONAL also has 100 years of history in the United States, sparked by a British ban on the sport. The English Football Association declared soccer “utterly unladylike” in 1921, so in 1922, one of the United Kingdom’s best women’s teams came to play in America— against men. Although the athletes finished their nine-game series in the States with three wins, three losses, and three draws, they left with something of a trophy: a soccer ball signed by President Warren G. Harding. THE LINCOLN 1? Memorial celebrated its centennial in May. After all this time, several false notions about the monument persist. Some say, for instance, there’s a face on the back of Lincoln’s head. (This is merely a fanciful interpretation of his hair.) Others claim there is typo in his Second Inaugural Address on the north wall of the memorial. While an engraver did initially carve a wrong letter, the mistake was corrected almost immediately. A FEw beloved 1 3 characters turn 100 this year: Smitty, the office boy from the eponymous comic strip that ran for 50 years in hundreds of newspapers; Walt Disney's Julius the Cat; and the kids’ classic the Velveteen Rabbit. The little plush bunny who came to life reminds us that in order to be real, you must first be loved. And for 100 years, our readers have made us at RD feel very real. VvVy Are You as Good as Your Word? Ina survey of nearly 2,000 Americans, 58 percent of respondents admitted that they've used a word to try to sound smarter— despite not knowing what it meant. 36 septemsBer 2022 | RD.COM PREPLY.COM~COMFORT & PR i, With more sizes and a better fit, Depend Silhouette? keeps you fresh and comfortable. Geta sample at Depend.com THE ONLY THING THAN US, IS YOU~READER'S DIGEST ALL ina Day's WORK School administrators frown upon bus drivers’ letting our students off before 8:15 a.m. But one day, ata little after 8, it began to rain, and a concerned driver announced over her radio, “I'm letting my kids off now so they go into school dry.” A fellow driver agreed. “Good idea. They smell even worse when they’re wet.” —JOHN PICKERL Wheaton, Illinois lopened an envelope from one of our cus- tomers regarding an accidental life insur- ance policy on her spouse. The request “Do you have any true-crime podcasts?” was simple and to the point. Handwritten boldly across the in- voice in red ink, it read: “Please cancel this policy. My hus- band is dead, and it was no accident.” —KATHLEEN JOHNSON SIMMONS Omaha, Nebraska Vacation’s over, back to work! + After taking a week of vacation, [like to slowly ease back into my workload. This process typically takes 51 weeks. —w@RODLACROIX + I wrote up a to-do list of things for when We have plumbers working in our house. I just heard one of them say “Lefty loosey, righty tighty.” I know we're in good hands. 38 septemBer 2022 —Y@ROLLININTHESEAT ASHER PERLMAN /CARTOONSTOCK.COMPETER DAZELEY/GETTY IMAGES I’m back from vaca- tion. It was so long I gasped and wrote “Write to-do list” at the top so I could cross one thing off. —y@KARENCHEEE + Listen to me. If you haven't returned from vacation yet, do not return. Stay there. wherever you are. Keep that OOO up. It’s too late for me, but save yourselves! —y @THEFEROCITY Text message exchange between reporter Doug Wolfe of WAND TV in Decatur, Illinois, and a local viewer: Viewer: Can you please tell me if the interstate is safe to drive? Wolfe: IDOT is asking everyone to stay off the interstate unless abso- lutely necessary. Viewer: Why call me an idiot? I was asking be- cause a friend is taking that road to work. Wolfe: IDOT stands for Illinois Department of Transportation. —y@WwaNnDTVDoUG We Found a PLUG URI LG Think (NOT say) “Ithought you'd betall” Finda | Realize | migian't desiccated | W231 | recognize spider in youwith a ho mute : desk Dutton | Maskon: building's address. “How do Icall IT again?” Buy “isthis | Pretend “fancy” | food/ | totext leggings | drink/ | toavoid orsweat- | medicine | hallway pants | still good?” | small talk RIP, potted plant Office crush no longer attractive Introvert realizes they like people afterall Eat stale cele- bratory doughnuts Reunite with favor- ite printer, which then jams "Did you Zoom | Coworker | 82h meetingin covip? chews yourcube | fhe Igot Y | covin” Wonder if bottled water expires While volunteering in a hospital during col- Enter wrong restroom Extrovert realizes 2020 hand | Temporary sanitizer | nostalgia hasevapo-| for rated | commute ADAPTED FROM NPR He replied, “That depends on your aim.” lege, I was tasked with | —SANDY SPEER feeding an elderly pa-__| Fairless Hills, tient who didn’t have Pennsylvania the strength to do it himself. When his tray | —_— arrived, I picked up YOUR FUNNY WORK the utensils and asked, | story could be worth “Would you like me to. | $$$. For details, go to use a spoon or a fork?” | RD.COM/SUBMIT. Ro.com 39SCIENCE-BASED NUTRITION TO SUPPORT YOUR HEALTH GOALS #1 DOCTOR-RECOMMENDED BRAND EX —©& | PROTEIN ‘Eume ; Immune Health: re Excellent source of 7 key Ensu nutrients for immune health SUGAR MAX PROTEIN 4) Unaware MORE WILK CHOCOLATE Energy Metabolism: ingust 450 | 25 menis| 15, 8 essential B vitamins >» WA MEI caries | Winerats | oath to support energy = = metabolism* -@ Brain Health: Vitamin Biz and folate to support brain health AVAILABLE IN 7 DELICIOUS FLAVORS: Mile Chocolate, Franch Vanilla, Craumy Stranburry, Creamy Peach, Cherry Cheesecake, Mi Chocolate wih Cotcine ana Cafe hcit per COUR EN $3 inst Ay NT Gen ensure Mane VLA Ens na aed i ieee itl caeREADER’S DIGEST. HEALTHY WELLNESS FROM THEHEALTHY.COM Beyond Burnout What to do when (or ideally, before) stress reaches epic proportions — By Leslie Finlay MERICA IS SERIOUSLY stressed A out. According to The Ameri- can Institute of Stress, even before the pandemic 94 percent of workers said that they regularly felt stressed. And more recently, the American Psychological Association reported that the country’s collective stress had reached alarming lev- els. We all get busy sometimes, but feeling constantly and chronically swamped, worried, and over- whelmed can lead to burnout, which can have serious consequences. ILLUSTRATIONS BY James Steinberg RD.COM | SEPTEMBER 2022 41READER’S DIGEST The Healthy Think of burnout as stress taken to another level. “Typically, burnout is defined as an extreme state of psy- chological strain,’ says YoungAh Park, an associate professor at the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois. It’s a re- sponse to facing prolonged, chronic stressors that go beyond your ability or available resources to overcome. Because so many of us frequently feel stressed, it can be hard to recog- nize when the line has been crossed. True burnout is different from feeling overextended. Michael Leiter, a pro- fessor of psychology at Acadia Univer- sity in Nova Scotia, explains, “Burnout combines three key dimensions: over- whelming exhaustion, feelings of cyn- icism, and a sense of discouragement, inadequacy, or low accomplishment.” Feeling exhausted when you begin working is a red flag. “This is a sign that demands are building faster than you can recover from them,” he says. That fatigue evolves into feelings such as pessimism and withdrawal, “be- coming grumpy and cynical about work you used to love—especially feeling that way toward people you're supposed to care about.” That's the end stage of burnout, but it takes a while to get there. “At first, we might find ourselves experienc- ing hyperactivity, trying to manage our stressors by frantically working to reduce them, and juggling more and more simultaneously,” says Emily Balcetis, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at New York University. Unfortunately, this desperation can contribute to making mistakes, losing concentration, or even starting to feel emotionally unhinged—all of which pave the way for more chronic issues to develop. ICTS MAN SB MTT Ee) As someone living with fibromyalgia and psoriatic arthritis, | often struggle to fall asleep. Nighttime stretches and white noise machines rarely helped, so | decided to try some sleep apps. The one that worked best was Aura. It offers bedtime stories, soothing sounds, meditations, insights from psy- chologists, even hypnosis—not just for sleep but for well-being all day long. It also has personalized suggestions based on information I shared, such as how long it takes me to drift off. By the end of the weeklong free trial, I was falling asleep peacefully, which |_ made the $60 annual fee seem worth the investment. —Jennifer Huizen 42 sepTemBeR 2022 WESTENDGI/GETTY IMAGES.Living at a burnout level of sus- tained stress can lead to serious health consequences, including problematic sleep patterns, digestion woes, and even a greater risk for depression, heart problems, diabetes, and weight gain, according to Balcetis. Perhaps most frightening, a study published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research found that people who experience chronic burnout have up to a 35 per- cent greater risk of early mortality. Before the stress in your life ramps up to that level, know that experts say there are proactive steps you can take to prevent burnout: Look for meaning at work ‘We can tolerate stress longer if we be- lieve we're doing something purpose- ful and worthwhile. Balcetis says we're more likely to experience chronic, burnout-inducing stress when some- thing seems out of our control, against our will, or totally meaningless. Try to identify ways in which even the small- est of your daily tasks contributes to the lives of others. “Take stock of what's on your plate,” Balcetis says. “If you can, cut or outsource one or two of those things that don’t personally give you meaning” Look for meaning outside of work Ifyou’re struggling to make your work meaningful, prioritizing life outside of work might be especially beneficial. Research published in BMC Medicine shows that people more likely to ex- perience a greater sense of engage- ment when on the job are those with a hobby—the ultimate burnout buffer. Ro.com 43,READER'S DIGEST Try to separate work and home/outside life “With boundaries blurring between work and nonwork these days, research has suggested that there are some tactics individuals can use,” Park says. She suggests turning off work e-mail notifications on your phone, using separate e-mail accounts for work and personal life, and setting up boundaries—physical and temporal— between work and personal life, especially if you work from home. Don't neglect yourself “Neglecting your diet or eating fast foods or comfort foods can become a way of dealing with stress, but it will rob your body and brain of nu- trients necessary to facilitate energy and regulate moods,” says Benjamin Maxson, AMPT, a family therapist in Orange County, California. Physical activity is essential to shaking out stress hormones too. “Many individu- als are less active when under stress in. order to rest,’ Maxson says. But move- ment is the most natural evolutionary response to our body’s stress. While you don’t have to run away from a mountain lion these days, even light movement helps “complete” the stress cycle, flushing stress hormones out of the bloodstream. Recognize when it has become too much Talk to your supervisors when you feel your job should be more manageable, 44 septemBer 2022 rewarding, and under your control. “It's very common for superiors to continue to increase tasks over time,” Maxson says, adding that if we don’t communicate our needs or limita- tions, they may be overlooked. If you don’t expect things will improve, con- sider changing jobs or even careers. For nurse Wendy Reynolds, direc- tor of a hospital intensive care unit in Pennsylvania, stress had always been part of the job. Then the pandemic hit, and the stress ramped up to a whole new level. “I wasn’t sleeping, always had a headache, and was always anx- ious and worried about everything,” she says. “I knew I needed to leave.” She realized the ICU had become too much for her, and the stress and long hours weren’t fair to her family, either. She solved her burnout prob- lem by transitioning into a health-care administration role where she can manage her work-life balance while still having a career that aligns with her passion for clinical health care. “I love my new job,’ she says. “I actually see my family now, and I can use my clinical skills to help leaders at other hospitals improve workflows for their staff, so it’s very rewarding” If you do feel burned out, therapy can help you process work-related stress and learn coping strategies, and it can teach you to communicate with your employer and set healthy bound- aries. Maxson says cognitive behav- ioral therapy is especially effective for dealing with workplace burnout.